


Maybe a Little Crazy

by Deannie



Series: Cowboys and Zombies [6]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombies, Gen, Old West Zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 05:53:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6841573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buck sighed, watching Sanchez exit the saloon and walk confidently down the street. There were kids in the street, too, in the late evening. Playing and yelling and laughing and carrying on after what had likely been an actual evening meal instead scraps their mamas could put together on the run. Women were on the boardwalks, talking to each other with smiles and the occasional catty look... Maybe he’d just ridden through too damn many dying towns in the last few months, but it had been a hell of a long time since he’d seen that. He missed it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe a Little Crazy

The abandoned homestead wasn’t anything special. It wasn’t big or fancy or impressive in any way, but it was a place to stop and rest, water his horse, and maybe see if there was enough hay in the barn to bed down, both him and Lady. Barricade the door and get to tomorrow.

Buck Wilmington smiled grimly to himself. In a world four steps from Hell, it was the small pleasures, right?

He led his horse toward the small blue house that had seen better days, spying a pump on the near side of it and hoping the trough wasn’t too fowled to fill with water for the poor girl. Lady could use a decent drink and a proper caring for. She was a fast horse, strong and smart, and he’d been working her hard for days now. She deserved a real rest.

Hell, so did he. The last three towns they’d been through had been empty shells or full of _no muertos_ and he was pretty sure that if he saw one more half-eaten corpse or scavenger looking to cash in on the horror, he was going to up and lose what little shred of humanity he had left. A cold, tired part of him was starting to wonder whether God hadn’t just gone and given up on all of them when he wasn’t looking.

“That one’s mine, damn it!”

The voice startled him, and Buck drew Lady to a stop for a second before proceeding more slowly as another voice joined the first, from somewhere beyond the house proper. Shit. He was in no mood to deal with the rats today.

“I found her, Marty. It’s mine.” Buck rounded the corner of the house and drew his gun at the sight of two men kneeling next to the body of a young woman. The men were young too, probably brothers; scraggly and worn and dull-looking around the eyes—from hard living or stupidity, he couldn’t say.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked them mildly as they both raised their hands with cowardly speed. The taller of the two held a locket on a chain. No way it was his.

“Somebody shot her,” the shorter one said quickly. “It weren’t us, I swear. She was like this when we got here.”

Buck took a deep breath, fighting the urge to just beat some decency into them both. “So you figured to steal from her, then?”

“What?” the taller one asked, confused as he looked at the locket dangling from his hand. “Well… She’s dead. Like, dead-dead, not one of them.”

“Yeah,” the other added, brave by association. “She don’t need it no more.”

“It’ll fetch a good penny,” his companion pointed out, like that was some sort of justification.

Buck cocked his gun, heartsick. “Pennies ain’t worth much when you’re dead, too,” he told them. “Put the locket down and get the hell out of here and I’ll let you live.”

He hoped they obliged because no matter how angry and sick and fed up he was, after all he’d seen, he wasn’t sure he could shoot another living human being. Ever again. If he did that, he might as well give up and let the undead have him.

“Hey, now look, friend,” the shorter man said, walking forward a little and lowering his hands. Buck raised his pistol a little higher, and the man brought his arms back up quickly. “You do what you have to these days. You know how it is—what’s going on. I mean, the dead are walking around killing everybody! You got to take what you can get.”

Buck shot the ground in front of the man’s toes. “Not from this lady, you don’t.” He hardened his voice. “Now get. Before I give you more than you can handle.”

“Hell, Joey, let’s go,” the taller one—who must have been Marty by default—said, grabbing his brother’s arm. They headed to their horses farther along behind the house, and Buck watched them mount and ride out before turning his attention to the woman’s body.

She might have been beautiful at one time, but days in the sun had left her macabre, her brown hair brittle, skin wasted in a dress that had once been blue with yellow flowers though the colors were barely visible now, through the dirt and neglect. It looked like someone had shot her in the head, but whether it was before or after she turned, he’d never know. And it didn’t matter anyway. He sighed sadly, looking at the sun and gauging the amount of time it would take to bury her.

More than he had before nightfall with the ground as hard as it was. He’d rode through towns full of the dead and never considered stopping to bury them, but somehow this was different. A single woman, alone in her blue and yellow dress… He had to have enough compassion left in him for this, right?

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he murmured, dismounting and kneeling next to her. He hooked the locket gently back around her neck and carried her carefully to the trough, which was as bone-dry as she was. A pile of sticks went in after her, and Buck murmured a prayer for her long-departed soul before lighting a lucifer and dropping it in.

The whole thing went up like tinder and he leaned against the house and watched, his tears half for the smoke and half for the world that made it necessary. A little voice in the back of his mind whispered the memory of another woman’s body burned, a friend whose soul burned with her, long before the dead walked the earth. Evil wasn’t new—it was just spreading these days.

The woman in the blue and yellow dress was ashes by the time he heard horses approaching in the late afternoon sun, the locket a slag of metal in the pile. Must have been mostly tin, then. She probably hadn’t had much...

“You _burned_ it!?”

Marty’s voice was outraged, and Buck looked up to see him, Joey, and two other men, bearing down on him on horseback. The two others were older, clearly kin to the younger men, and carrying shotguns.

“He burned the damn thing, Pa!” Marty yelled, more concerned about the damn locket and the price it might fetch than the life of another human being. “And he threatened to kill us both!”

Marty’s dad wasn’t much of a talker, apparently—not that Buck would have wanted to hear what he had to say—he just let loose a blast of his shotgun that nearly took Buck’s head off. Not so long ago, Buck would have shot the man down and called it self defense, but he had no stomach for killing. Not anymore.

So he jumped on Lady’s back and ran, heading toward where Four Corners used to be—hopefully still was. He’d never make it south to Eagle’s Bend before dark and he purely could not stand to live another night in the ruins of civilization. Marty’s dad fired off another shot, spooking Lady, and Buck let the girl have her head, never looking back once. He wasn’t being a coward. He was just saving part of the human race. Even weasels like those were worth preserving now, it seemed.

The world truly had gone to Hell.

********

For the fifth time in as many days, Nathan watched Josiah walk slowly along the base of the newly completed city wall, a combination of adobe and timber—whatever they could scrounge or build themselves. The preacher patted close-fitted wooden slats in satisfaction, and Nathan grinned with him. It’d been a long time coming—convincing the people of the town that it needed building, that they needed to pitch in because it was their safety at stake here. The labor alone, plus guarding groups of workers as they harvested materials from dead homesteads in the area, had been considerable. But here it was, enclosing the whole damn town. Mostly.

There were outlying farms and ranches of people too stubborn—or just tough enough—to refuse to back down in the face of the epidemic, but a fair number of people had chosen to move into the town proper and behind the protective wall. Buildings that had stood empty were filling up, and long-time residents were either embracing the bustle of the new citizenry or cursing the “damned newcomers.”

Funny how they didn’t curse quite as much when those newcomers spent a few nights a month helping to keep the zombies from overrunning the place. The wall sure as hell was going to help with that—not that any of them had helped in its construction.

“Lord, Josiah,” he called as the man came near. “You’re like a proud daddy with that thing!”

The guard tower where Nathan stood was at the end of Josiah’s walk. Sturdy and strong and built into the top of the eight-foot wall, it afforded a good view of the western approach to the town of Four Corners. Josiah climbed up into the shack with him and looked around the area outside.

“A child who grows well is a joy, Nathan,” he replied, turning back to look at the little town.

Not so little, really. Four Corners had been a fair sized collection of buildings when they got there six months before, though only half-full of people. Nathan wondered if it would be empty now if not for them, if the zombies would have cleared it out, starting with one young man and his daughter, and taking the rest of them along into Hell.

But it hadn’t happened, and instead, the town was, if not actually thriving at least surviving, which was more than a lot of places could say. From here, he could look straight down the length of main street, past the livery and his clinic, the saloons and telegraph office… All the way past the houses to the animal fields and the broken down church Josiah was set on rebuilding next. All closed in and safe.

“Getting cramped,” Tiny said, as he walked toward them, ready for his turn at guard duty. The sun had set and dark was falling; they’d likely not see another living soul wanting entry today. The undead, though? Well, night was their favorite time, and Tiny was one of the best of the self-appointed city guards when it came to seeing at night.

“Cramped?” Nathan asked. Seemed roomy enough around here.

“The horses are tired of sharing such space,” the livery owner groused.

He was probably right, too. Between the people who lived in town full time and those that lived outside the walls but kept their horses here for safety, there were a lot of the animals crammed into the livery corrall and the large paddock and barn at the east wall.

“Only safe place for them, Jurgen, you know that,” Josiah said patiently. He’d heard the complaint before, clearly.

“ _I_ know that,” Tiny said, checking his rifle and looking out at the desert around them. “But _they_ do not.” He stilled. “Rider coming in from the north.”

Nathan looked out to see a white horse walking slow and tired, a tall man on its back, flagging as well, by the look of him. “Been riding a while,” he murmured.

Josiah nodded and the three men watched him come, his head bobbing with weariness or sadness or just the boredom of the trail. He looked up at the walls and saw them watching when he was still a ways off and spurred the tired horse to a quicker gait, waiting to call out until he was within shouting range.

“Hey the town!” he called strongly. “Hell, this can’t be Four Corners, can it?”

Josiah smirked and leaned out of the covered deck. “You don’t need to sound so surprised!” he replied, a smile in his voice. The man rode closer and details came clear. He was white, with a large black mustache and a subdued grin. He carried himself ready for anything, even tired and careworn as he seemed.

“Last time I came through here, this wasn’t much more than a dot on the desert,” he explained. “Had two saloons though, so it wasn’t a total loss.” He’d gotten right up where everyone could see everyone, and he was watching the three of them carefully, his hand casually close to his pistol.

“Still got the saloons,” Josiah confirmed. He looked at Nathan, and Nathan nodded. The man seemed friendly enough. And he looked like maybe he was good in a fight, too, if they were lucky. “You looking to sample?”

The man laughed wanly. “The barmaids, mostly,” he admitted, though there was a wistfulness to his voice. “Wouldn’t say no to a good whiskey, though.” He looked up and down the length of the wall and smiled sadly. “Right fine fence you got there,” he offered. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen a town where I’d feel safe for the night.” He seemed to think there’d be a price attached to that. “What’s the going rate for getting in the door?”

Nathan shook his head. “No cost for entry, but you’ll need to prove you and your girl there are safe.”

The man nodded readily enough and dismounted as Nathan and Josiah stepped down to open the gate. He was tall—taller than Josiah but not as tall as Nathan himself. Slouched like he was trying to be shorter as he led his mare inside with a smile and a tip of his hat. That smile hid a world-wise alertness, it was plain to see, and Nathan wondered where the man had come from.

Josiah took the horse’s reins and gestured to the stalls they’d put in just to the other side of the gate. “I’ll make sure your girl here is cleared and taken care of. Guns and knives in the barrel outside the stall and strip once you’re in there,” he said easily. “You’ll get ‘em back when you’re cleared. What’s your name?”

“Buck Wilmington,” he answered readily, though he was clearly surprised by the demand—or maybe Josiah’s no-nonsense way of delivering it. He paused a moment at the door of the stall with his hands on his gunbelt, and Nathan braced himself for a fight. Since they started trying to screen people for the sickness as they entered town, only two men had refused to be examined. One had been turned out and watched till he moved on.

The other was in the boneyard, shot in the head when he went mad from the sickness. That one still stuck in Nathan’s craw. If they could have gotten the man restrained safely, maybe treated him instead of shot him down. He was half-convinced Josiah still thought the zombies were nothing more than demons from Hell, regardless of his willingness to listen to Nathan’s theories. Until they were willing to make a leap of faith here, theories would be all he had.

“Any chance I can get one of those barmaids to look me over instead?” Wilmington asked finally, a randy smile on his face that put Nathan at ease for the moment. “Reckon they’ll be seeing a fair bit of this later on tonight anyway.”

Josiah rolled his eyes. “Lord, we may turn you out right now, as a danger to the womenfolk.”

Wilmington laughed and surrendered his weapons, and Nathan walked into the stall with him to make sure he was clean.

“Reckon if we’re gonna get this friendly, I might at least know your name,” Wilmington said as Nathan closed the stall door behind them, his hand on his own gun.

“Nathan Jackson,” he said quietly, watching the man strip far too readily. “People don’t usually go along with this so quick, if you don’t mind my saying.”

Wilmington snorted bitterly. “They’d all live a hell of a lot longer if they did,” he replied. He stood with his back to Nathan, naked as a jaybird and bite free from this angle. “Seen too many towns brought down by one person too afraid to admit he was bit.”

“Me, too,” Nathan agreed.

The white man turned his head, smiling a mocking smile. “You ready now?” he asked. “Don’t want to scare you or nothing, but the ladies say…”

“Nothing I’m gonna say, Wilmington, so turn the hell around.” Nathan had to laugh as the man showed himself off like a peacock. Bite free and not nearly the specimen he made himself out to be.

“Hell, you seen more of me than a man usually does,” he said, as Nathan nodded for him to dress. “Reckon maybe you should call me Buck.”

Nathan grinned. “Ain’t sure I want to get that familiar,” he replied.

Buck finished sliding back into his clothes and clapped Nathan on the shoulder. “You’re a good man, Jackson,” he told him, like that was some kind of balm. “Now what’s say you point me toward the saloon so’s I can get to know some of the women here as well as you know me.”

Nathan shook his head. Josiah might not be too far off with that "danger to the womenfolk" crack.

*******

Buck tried like hell to put the episode at that homestead behind him. He’d done what he could, and he lived to see another sunset—and so had the idiots who pursued him for five miles of hard running.

Luckily, he was good at putting crap behind him.

He tended to play the fool as a general life choice, in fact. He wasn’t stupid, and he was capable of more serious thought than he let on, but being the loud, carefree one made it easier to get up in the morning—nowadays more than ever—and it often got you more information than being quiet and brooding.

Also got you more girls, which was just the way he liked it.

He’d settled in a corner of the nicer of Four Corners’ two saloons and ordered himself a whiskey from a delicious lady named Greta, trying to let the basic fact that he was sitting in a _living town_ clear his mind. He’d about started to relax when two soft, sweet-smelling hands covered his eyes.

“Buck Wilmington, as I live and breathe.”

Hell, he couldn’t recognize her by voice. That might be bad. Saving himself from embarrassment and a potential slap in the face, Buck slid the hands into his and pulled them away, looking up into a set of dark and lovely eyes that ran a shock through him. “Jesus, Loretta Parker! What the hell are you doing here?” he asked. “I figured to drop in on you when I got to Eagle’s Bend—”

Loretta slid into his lap, her long blonde hair smelling of lavender powder to cover the underlying musk of business. She had been one of the working girls in Eagle’s Bend since the first time Buck and Chris rode into the damn town just after the war. Smart as a whip and she didn’t miss much. “Eagle’s Bend is dying, Buck,” she said sadly. “They elected that damn fool Staines as sheriff last year, and he hasn’t got a clue how to keep people safe in all this.” She looked up as the saloon doors creaked open, and smiled big. “Our Josiah, though,” she said, pride in her voice. “He’s one who knows how to keep the dead outside the walls.”

The broad man who’d taken Lady’s reins before sending Buck off to be screened walked up to him, dropping Buck’s saddlebags carefully at his feet. “We haven’t been properly introduced,” he said, holding out his hand and shaking Buck’s with a firm grip. “Josiah Sanchez. Your girl’s in the paddock at the east end of town,” he told him. “She’s a pretty thing.”

Buck nodded, waving him into a seat as Greta came back with his whiskey. She gave him and Loretta a long look, and Buck smirked happily, knowing where he’d be ending up tonight. If the bed was big enough.

“Lady’s a fine one,” he agreed as Greta walked off. “Been hell keeping her safe, sometimes, but she’s quick on her feet when I need her to be.”

“She was done in. Looks like you ran her pretty good today,” Josiah replied. Buck liked him instantly. Jackson, too. If Eagle’s Bend really was failing, maybe Four Corners could be more than just the only place he could reach before nightfall. He was tired of seeing what the world had become…

“You may not notice behind that great big fence of yours, but _no muertos_ don’t always attack at night.” He knocked back most of his whiskey, the evening’s tragedy souring it as it went down. “And they ain’t the only ones out there wanting to take you down.”

Josiah nodded sympathetically. “Where’d you come from?” he asked, curious.

“You the sheriff here?” Buck replied, feeling a little uncomfortable for the first time. He was better off in the desert than in a prison, and he’d seen a few towns that’d gone that way. Seemed safe on the outside, but proved to be a trap once they had a man inside, using up what they could of him.

The old man chuckled in a sort of embarrassed way. Self-deprecating, Chris had once called it. “No sir, just a washed-up preacher who saw a flock needed tending of a more earthly variety.” Didn’t sound like a trap-setting man to Buck.

“South from Colorado,” he offered, figuring a little truth couldn’t hurt. “I was guarding a wagon train up to Pueblo about five months back. Ran into my first _no muertos_ when I came to back in the territory.” He sighed and drank his liquor. “Sure as hell wasn’t the last.”

“For any of us,” Josiah replied sadly. “Those that live, at any rate.”

Buck had seen that grieving look in too many eyes. “Hell of a place you all have here, though,” he said, trying to distract the preacher. “Don’t think I’ve seen a town this done up and safe since it all started. I heard some of San Francisco is walled in now, too, trying to save those that are left.”

Josiah nodded, smiling at Greta as she put a mug of beer before him. “Partly where we got the idea,” he admitted freely. “Luckier here—the town is small enough to maintain a pretty tight perimeter.”

“You sound like a military man,” Buck told him with a grin. “The preacher’s also a colonel, maybe?”

That gained him a laugh. “No,” Josiah replied. “I had my own battles to fight while the war raged.” He shrugged. “One too many Greek epics, perhaps. A pursuit I never thought would have practical applications.”

Loretta smiled at him in a familiar way that made Buck wonder if the good preacher wasn’t so good after all. “Well I, for one, am glad you’ve put it to use here.” She made a sour face. “I’d still be home safe in Eagle’s Bend if we’d had people like you there.”

Buck cuddled her to him, sensing her sadness as well as her anger. “Well, you got a friend here, at any rate,” he told her sweetly. “I might even stay awhile.”

Loretta kissed him on the cheek, but he could feel Josiah’s eyes on him, assessing. He met the gaze steadily.

“Takes a lot of good men to keep this place safe, Buck,” Josiah said simply. “We can always use one more. Wouldn’t pay much—”

Buck smirked. “And by ‘much’ you mean anything at all?”

Josiah snorted and smiled big. “Pretty much.” He sobered up quick and drained his beer. “You seem like a man we might want to hold onto.”

That old unease rose a notch, just when he’d been feeling more comfortable. “And if I don’t want to?” he asked, the barest edge of menace in his voice.

Josiah sat back, hands up. “Just wondering if you and the town can’t both offer each other something,” he said. “Didn’t mean any harm.” He rose, smiling at Loretta. “Miss Loretta,” he said sweetly to her. “You stay as long as you want,” he told Buck. He leaned over and damn near oozed truth and sincerity. “And leave when you want.”

Buck sighed, watching Sanchez exit the saloon and walk confidently down the street. There were kids in the street, too, in the late evening. Playing and yelling and laughing and carrying on after what had likely been an actual evening meal instead scraps their mamas could put together on the run. Women were on the boardwalks, talking to each other with smiles and the occasional catty look...

Maybe he’d just ridden through too damn many dying towns in the last few months, but it had been a hell of a long time since he’d seen that. He missed it.

He jumped abruptly as Loretta smacked him in the shoulder.

“Hey!” he cried. “What was that for!?”

“You being suspicious, as always,” she replied, scolding him. “Always gotta look for what they want from you, don’t you?”

“You live longer that way, darling,” he murmured. He shook his head, dispelling the gloom. He was safe for the moment, and a lovely woman was in his lap. He tightened his hold on her. “And right now, I have a _suspicion_ that maybe you and me and Greta over there might have some things to talk about.”

Loretta giggled and denied nothing.

*******

> _Ruth stood before him, her nightgown on fire, though the flames didn’t seem to trouble her in the least. Daddy lay behind her, sprawled in the mud, his head tilted unnaturally to accommodate where half his throat had been ripped out. He’d be rising soon._
> 
> _“You could have saved him, little brother,” Ruth growled, her face gray with death and eyes clouded over. “You could have saved all of us.”_  

Nathan sat bolt upright in the chair at his desk, glad he’d awoken before the rest of his sisters made their appearance tonight. He knew the nightmares were nothing more than a combination of the things he’d seen and the people he missed; stress and tiredness and the constant thoughts of what the hell was happening and how to stop it, wrapping themselves into these frequent dreams.

Didn’t mean he was going back to sleep, though.

He sighed at the pile of telegrams he’d been going through when he fell asleep, and pulled out his pocket watch to check the time. Four hours of sleep, which wasn’t much, but would do him for now. The papers before him were from the group of doctors—the consortium, Josiah called them—that had sprung up from the letters Dr. Kimble had sent to his friends on either coast so many months ago.

Right now, they were discussing the way the disease spread: how some people went mad before they died, some after; why some died and stayed dead. And whether they could figure out a way to stop the dying at all.

Cossican thought the speed of transformation had to do with the zombie that did the biting and how long ago they’d turned. Yao in Kansas City thought it was the age of the victim. Parker up in Denver didn’t know what the hell to think but was starting to see more and more people fall ill. He had two who looked like they were improving, after more than a week of lingering and hacking, and he was ready to defend them to his own death if it meant getting an idea of what the disease did to people that lived through the worst of it. Yao still hadn’t seen a single confirmed case in Missouri, but he was betting it was only a matter of time.

So was Nathan. He was pretty sure, in fact, that this damn thing would make it all the way to the east coast in another year or two if they couldn’t stop it. He had mentioned to Parker in his last telegram that they should see if they could find out whether it was into Mexico yet. He'd been gratified when the doctor praised the idea and promised to look into it.

The consortium had grown beyond the West and was now using more medical knowledge than Nathan had. He felt completely out of his league and excited as hell all at once. Because of his internship with Dr. Kimble, or maybe his own pig headedness, these doctors were treating him as an equal… It was heady.

"Long as they don't find out you're just an uppity ex-slave who hasn't had a lick of learning," he muttered under his breath.

He called himself to order immediately. He'd been reading medical texts from the age of fifteen, when one of the doctors in a bloody field hospital in Virginia saw a spark in him and handed him an old anatomy book as they waited for the next wave of wounded. He'd been practicing healing for almost as long...

And if sheer drive to solve the damn puzzle counted for anything, he was as qualified as any of them.

He took his journal in hand and started reviewing what he’d learned from recent visitors. Some people knew nothing beyond their own small towns, and some had traveled all over; had a better lay of where things stood. He figured Buck Wilmington was one of those, but Nathan’d been pulled away to help set little Rollie Hansen’s broken leg before he could find out where the man had come from and what he’d seen.

A cowbell’s frantic clanging broke the quiet of the predawn and Nathan stood, grabbing his gun. It wasn’t even a conscious thing these days. Just hear the bell, grab your gun, stop the zombies.

He remembered a soldier in the war saying the exact same thing about fighting the Rebs.

“LARGE GROUP TO THE EAST!” Jerry Dennehy bellowed. The young man who’d assumed the undertaking business when Martin Kirby had inevitably succumbed was a good shot with a good head on his shoulders.

Nathan clambered down the stairs from his clinic, headed for the eastern guard house, a mirror of the one he’d been in at sundown, though the wall it stood on here was adobe. There were gun slits built in below it, enough for a dozen men, and he wasn’t the only one running for them. Josiah was already there before him, and Nathan eased up to the slit next to the preacher’s.

“Hell of a way to wake up, huh?” Josiah called over the noise.

“Would’ve been, if I was asleep,” Nathan shot back. He sighted carefully in the uncertain light before dawn, dropping one zombie and uselessly winging another.

“Some of us were having a whole lot more fun where we were!”

Buck Wilmington’s amused voice was a surprise, and Nathan pulled his head out from his position long enough to see the newcomer firing away, as cool and collected as Nathan had assumed he’d be. “Looks like there’s an even dozen left!” Buck called, not looking away from his gun slit.

“Gunfire beyond the wall!” Jerry yelled out from the tower just as Nathan heard the new rifle firing in the distance. “Gunfire beyond the wall! We have a live one out there!”

“Well let’s not kill him, then!” Josiah bellowed back. “Where is he!?”

“He's to the north,” Jerry directed. “Concentrate to the south and east and he’ll be fine.”

“Lord, what idiot is out there shooting _no muertos_ in the middle of the night?” Buck asked.

“A damned accurate one,” Josiah called back. “We’re down to—” A final volley of rifle shots rang out from half a dozen guns and the world fell silent. “Never mind.”

“Hey the town!” came a call from the darkness after a long moment of nothing. Wilmington straightened up with a disbelieving laugh and ran for the guard tower. Nathan looked over at Josiah, who shrugged and followed.

“I asked myself who the hell was crazy enough to be out here taking potshots at the undead in the middle of night,” Buck called out once he’d reached the top, his voice light and teasing. “Guess I should have known it’d be you, you old war dog!”

There was a long moment of silence. “Buck?” the man outside replied, shocked. “What the hell are you doing here!?”

Someone lowered one of the lanterns out of a gun slit, and a dirty, sunburned blond man, on foot and dressed in black, could be seen more clearly, staring up at the guard tower.

“Well, I _was_ spending a lovely evening with an old acquaintance, but now it looks like I’m saving your sorry ass," Buck replied.

Josiah gestured to the guard on the fence gate to open it, and Nathan and the others stood close, guns still drawn. “Looks to me like he’s the one did the saving,” Josiah said wryly. “At the very least, he helped out when he was needed.”

The blond man was carrying a saddle and his saddlebag and looked done in. He stumbled roughly past the gate and just stood there, like he didn’t have much energy to do anything else.

Nathan reached out to take some of his burden and the man warily gave up the saddle, looking around at all of them and grinning tiredly as Buck approached. Wilmington wrapped the newcomer in a gentle hug that spoke of either family or a very long acquaintance, then pulled back and looked at the man with worry. “What the hell happened to you, Chris?” he asked quietly.

The man named Chris dropped his bags and nodded his thanks when Buck collected them. “Lost my horse about half a day’s ride out of Trilby,” he said. “Was too damn stubborn to turn back.”

“Uh huh,” Buck answered knowingly. “Listen, the folks here gotta check you out and make sure you… um...” he swallowed, like he couldn’t imagine this man being infected.

“Make sure I’m not bit,” Chris finished for him with a teasing smile. “Trust you to find the one town that’s wised up.” His eyes held a darkness, and Nathan wondered suddenly how long he’d been walking. Trilby was a good three days riding, with only one town between it and here.

“Surprised you didn’t pick up a horse in Nederville,” Buck said, as if his mind was running in the same circles Nathan’s was.

Chris sighed. “They weren’t so wise. Nothing but rats and dogs now,” he said sadly. “Took what provisions I could carry—foodstuffs, bullets.” He shrugged like his shoulders were too heavy to lift. “I was hoping Four Corners was still standing. Not sure I’d’ve made it to Eagle’s Bend.”

“Ain’t sure it’d be worth it,” Buck muttered. Chris looked at him sharply and whatever he saw in his friend’s eyes made his face fall. “Come on,” Buck said more brightly. “Let’s get you checked out and we can drink our breakfast.”

Chris smiled wanly at that and let himself be led to the stalls, but gave his guns directly to Wilmington instead of setting them inside the barrel as Josiah indicated. Nathan could see a few nervous looks being exchanged among the men, but he found he already trusted Buck Wilmington. And given that Chris looked hale and hearty, if he _was_ bit, then maybe they had an opportunity to save someone here...

Josiah led Chris into the first stall, lighting the lanterns as they entered.

"Who built the wall?" Chris was asking as the stall door closed. Nathan didn't listen for the answer, watching Buck take a deep, worried breath.

"Your friend looks okay," Nathan said, trying to ease the other man's tension.

Buck grinned, hefting his buddy's gear. "Figure it'd take more than a few _no muertos_ to bring him down," he agreed. His eyes were still worried, locked on the door of the converted horse stall. "Been through a whole lot worse, if you can believe it."

The stall door opened after a while and Josiah nodded as he walked out, grinning at Buck's obvious relief. Chris came out eventually, limping and footsore, and Buck slung an arm around his shoulders, more to hold him up than anything, it seemed. “How about that whiskey?”

“I’d settle for a bed at this point,” Chris muttered.

“Lord,” Buck responded with a laugh. “Now I know you’re dying.” He pulled away a little. “Though maybe a bath might be your first order of business.”

Nathan noticed Josiah staying put as the two friends moved off, a thoughtful look on his face.

“What’re you thinking, Josiah?” he asked as the last of the night shooters made their way to their homes and Jerry climbed back up into the tower.

“I don’t know,” Josiah said, eyes still on the pair of men who’d been so quick to dive in and help. “Seems like an awful big coincidence, Buck coming here and his friend showing up right after.” He clapped Nathan on the shoulder and led him toward the one saloon that never closed. “You ever hear of kismet?”

*******

Chris struggled to stay awake as he waited for the food he could smell cooking in the small kitchen at the back of the saloon. He’d been walking for a week, but it felt like a month. His feet were raw and aching and all he’d really wanted for the last few days was a meal that wasn’t jerky and a solid day of sleep.

Until he saw the imposing walls of Four Corners in the predawn light. He even thought for a minute that he was seeing things—too many days on the trail rationing his water too much. He had heard that San Francisco had started walling up “safe” areas, and of course, San Diego had Fort Stockton, but he hadn’t heard of a walled city here in New Mexico territory. And he sure as hell wouldn’t have thought Four Corners would have been the place to do it.

“I stayed in Texas,” he said quietly. “After you left. Read all the horror stories and dire predictions in the papers.” He sipped the coffee that was more like sludge but better than nothing. “I figured it was all hysteria. Mostly. Just some epidemic that would run its course eventually.”

“Don’t we wish,” Buck muttered. “Kind of makes you sorry you came back, huh?” He shoved a glass of water at Chris for good measure.

Buck was hovering. They’d parted ways in Texas five months back, when Buck had once again lost patience with Chris’s temper. Chris didn’t actually blame him, and he was damn glad to see the man safe and sound—too many scenarios had run through his head after that run-in with the undead he’d had outside of Trilby. He’d managed to keep hid from them since then, but the large group bearing down on the walls of the town had been more than he was willing to ignore.

“So what have you been doing this whole time?” he asked, knowing Buck would have put the fight in Texas behind him like he always did and moved on. “Been playing carpenter?” A plate piled with beans, eggs, and bread was put in front of him, and he dug in gratefully.

Buck looked confused a minute. “Oh, the wall?” he asked. “That was there when I got here—I only just arrived myself.” The doors squeaked as they opened and Josiah and a tall black man walked in. Buck gave them a broad grin. “I hear tell Josiah and Nathan bullied the townspeople into building it.”

Chris snorted at that. He remembered Four Corners as a mouse of a town. Hard to imagine someone convincing these people to do anything this ambitious.

“Amazing what one can do with the threat of horrific death hanging over his head,” Josiah said. He looked questioningly at the extra chairs at the table, and Chris let Buck nod them into them. “This is Nathan Jackson,” Josiah introduced his friend.

“Chris Larabee,” Chris offered, swallowing quickly. He looked down at his plate, dumbfounded to see he’d eaten everything already.

Buck laughed at the look and turned toward the bar. “We need another plate here, barkeep!” he called, smiling at Chris and lowering his voice. “Looks like this man might eat you out of house and home.”

The smile was laced with too much worry and Chris managed a reassuring nod. “I’ll be fine once I’ve got some sleep.”

“And a shower,” Buck added, because he had to twist the knife. Chris hoped he didn’t smell as ripe as he felt.

“I can take a look at your feet, if they’re still bothering you later,” Jackson offered. “I have a salve that’s real good for blisters and such.”

Chris nodded his thanks, but some of his surprise must have shown because Josiah seemed to feel the need to explain. “Nathan is our resident healer,” he said proudly. “Not much that ails a body that he can’t figure out how to make better.”

Buck chuckled bitterly. “I’m betting there’s one.”

Nathan’s eyes went hard, but not in offense. He glanced at Josiah as if asking for reassurance before he spoke. “We’re working on that, too,” he murmured carefully.

“Curing the undead?” Buck asked incredulously. “How you figure to do that?”

But that wasn’t the question that needed asking. “Who’s ‘we’?” Chris wanted to know.

“Bunch of doctors across the country trying to figure it out,” Nathan said. “Just need to keep people safe for as long as we can. We need to stop the spread, or at least slow it down.”

Chris drained his cup of coffee and dug into the second plate of food that was put in front of him. “You made a good start of it here with that screening,” he told them. He’d been impressed with the inspection stalls. Kept the disease from getting too far inside the walls if your people were willing to do what was necessary. “I imagine you’ve had to take care of more than your fair share of problems.”

Nathan looked uncomfortable and there was a tension between him and Josiah. “More than we should,” he admitted. The words sounded wrong, though.

“What do you mean?” _Lord, and why do I care?_ Chris wondered to himself. He was just staying long enough to rest up before going on to Eagle’s Bend to check on the homestead.

Nathan shrugged nervously. “There was a man survived the disease, out in San Francisco. He was killed before the doctor could learn anything, but if there was one, there have to be others.”

Buck shook his head in horror. “You can’t mean to keep _no muertos_ here?!” he whispered. “You’ll have a hell of a nice walled-up graveyard.”

“Not the zombies,” Nathan said quickly, looking around furtively, though they were the only ones there. “The living. If a man survives the bite, might be he could be fine afterward.”

“Like smallpox,” Chris mused, looking at the faint scars on Buck’s neck that were his friend’s memento of that illness. “Except smallpox don’t turn corpses into rabid animals.”

“So maybe the trick is to keep them from becoming corpses,” Josiah said simply. He had a cold, mourning look in his eyes that Chris saw in the mirror every God damned day. He wondered why the preacher was working so hard at this.

“You find any?” he asked, not surprised by the pursing of Jackson’s lips that signalled a clear no. “So what’s your plan, then? Take in the next person who comes to the gate, bit and dying, and hope you can nurse ‘em back to health?” He shook his head at Jackson’s chagrin. “Sounds damn foolish to me.”

“Not if it can stop the disease from spreading any farther,” the healer maintained. “It ain’t stopping unless we stop it.”

“So why are you talking to us about it?” Chris asked. “I just stumbled into town. Buck says he ain’t been here a whole lot longer.” He had a sudden desire for whiskey at the shrewd look in Josiah’s eyes. “Seems like you must have better folks to bring this up with.”

The preacher leaned forward. “There are some you look at and say, ‘There’s a man I know could help.’” He shrugged. “Your own choice, of course. We just… like the look of you.”

“The look of _him_? Now I know you’re loco, preacher.” Buck ran his gaze up and down Chris’s body, and Chris knew he looked horrible. Tired and branded by too many days of desert sun and sick to his core. In his own way, Buck didn’t look much better—at least around those troubled eyes of his.

“I reckon he’ll clean up good enough,” Josiah said. The black man didn’t say a word.

“What about you, Jackson?” Chris asked quietly. “You ain’t much of a recruiter.”

Nathan shook himself. “I’m just looking to end this. Before too many more have to die.”

The silence that hung over the table thickened. Chris was too damn tired to argue. Too damn spooked by the reality he’d come to understand in the last week to formulate a plan of action.

It was Buck who finally broke the mood. “Why  didn’t you think to build a quarantine outside the walls?” he asked bluntly.

All three of them turned to look at him in surprise and he shrugged. “What?”

“We, uh…” Josiah sighed, embarrassed. After a long moment, he laughed. “We never thought of that.”

Buck grinned. “Maybe you were right, preacher. Maybe you _do_ need me around.”

Chris was slightly surprised that Buck would buy into this lunacy. “You really figuring on staying?” he asked incredulously.

His friend’s hackles were clearly raised. “You may have been reading about all this in the papers, pard,” he grated angrily. “But I have ridden through too damn many ruined towns and seen too damn many dead and dying in the last four months.” He looked at his coffee and lowered his voice. “Even the people who are left alive are becoming animals, so… maybe the right answer _is_ a little crazy. Ain’t any crazier than what’s happening outside these walls.”

The look of anger and sadness on Buck’s face made Chris want to ask him exactly what he _had_ seen. His own first-hand knowledge of the undead consisted of one hellish night of slaughter and a single, death-filled town. What more had Buck seen? How much more _was_ there to see?

“It’d make the most sense to build it in line of sight of that guard tower,” he said quietly, shrugging when Buck raised cool eyes to meet his. “If a patient went bad on you, it’d give the town some backup.”

“He means the guard could shoot him in the head if he eats you before you get to your gun,” Buck put in with a joking smile to the two townsmen.

“Sounds like a solid plan,” Josiah said, rising and looking at his companion. “It’d be easier if you just didn’t get eaten, though.”

Nathan shook his head wryly. “Been working toward that aim for six months. I reckon I done a good enough job so far.” He nodded to Chris and Buck, and Chris was warmed by the look of concern. “You get some sleep,” he said gently. “Come see me if those feet or that sunburn of yours give you trouble.”

Chris watched the two men walk out into the daylight. “Reckon they’ll get themselves killed doing this,” he murmured, hoping Buck didn’t do the same.

“Or save the world,” Buck replied, his eyes considering when Chris turned to look at them. Wilmington flashed him a quick smile. “Of course, the two ain’t mutually exclusive, are they?”

God, he’s missed that mad positivity. “I reckon not.” He swallowed the last of his coffee, feeling sleep pulling at him. “What’d you mean about Eagle’s Bend?” he asked, wondering if he really had the energy to hear the answer. Wondering if it was gone, like Nederville.

“Loretta lives here now,” Buck said quietly, staring at his mug again. “Says Staines has set up martial law. They’ve built a joke of a fence around the center of town and won’t let anyone in who can’t pay.” His eyes went dark. “They have a different way of screening for _no muertos_. If they don’t like the looks of you, you’re dead or turned out into the night.”

Chris scowled. “Which I’m guessing amounts to the same thing?” He’d noticed more of the undead in the nighttime hours. The two of them rose, and Buck lead the way—Chris hoped he was headed for the boarding house.

“The outlying farms and ranches there have been left to themselves,” Buck said into the silence. “I reckon the homestead is still the way you left it.”

Burnt out and abandoned with two too many graves in the yard.

Chris looked toward the gate he’d come in. There was a column of smoke outside the walls. Burning bodies. The memories threatened to overwhelm him for a long moment and he was too exhausted to stop them.

How many other wives and children had died in all of this? How many more would be burned like those undead outside?

“You’re staying here?” he asked quietly, turning his gaze to the boarding house sign a few doors down.

Buck shrugged. “I ain’t seen a place that’s actually surviving in so long, Chris,” he murmured sadly. “Reckon I could try to get used to it again.” He waited a beat and smiled that unkillable smile. “And of course, there’s Loretta.” He nudged Chris’s shoulder, careful not to unbalance him. “She’s got a friend, the name of Greta….” He trailed off, his smile randy.

“Greta and Loretta, huh?” Chris watched a woman shoo a little boy out of a shop down the street, hollering at him to go and play…

“I reckon I could stay long enough to meet her,” he allowed with an exhausted smile.

But right now, he needed to log some solid sleep. If he was going to even entertain the insanity Buck and his new friends seemed intent on starting, he’d sure as hell need to rest up first.

*******  
the end

 


End file.
